Don't Forget Democracy

Don't Forget Democracy

Lord Palmerston once observed that "Britain has no permanent
friends; she only has permanent interests," an observation that
seems to be lost on the U.S. State Department when it comes to
China.

The communist giant was America's implacable enemy from the Korean
War through to the height of the Cultural Revolution, yet in 1972
became a de facto ally in a two-decade struggle to contain Soviet
expansion. But despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991,
the tendency to see China as a "permanent friend" -- no matter what
it does -- persists in the U.S. State Department.

In December 1945, U.S. President Harry Truman, facing a post-war
China torn apart by a Soviet-fueled civil war, sent his revered
army chief of staff, George Marshall, to mediate a settlement.
Truman's letter of instruction to Gen. Marshall was a model of
strategic concision. "A strong, united, and democratic China," he
wrote, "is in the most vital interest of the United States and all
the United Nations."

How times have changed since then. "America welcomes the emergence
of a strong, peaceful and prosperous China," U.S. Secretary of
State Colin Powell declared in an explication of the Bush
administration's new China policy at Texas A&M University on
Nov. 5. Somewhere in the 58 years since Truman's letter, the State
Department has misplaced the word "democratic." Instead it has been
replaced by an assumption among my former colleagues at the State
Department that China has somehow become America's permanent
friend, and mentioning democracy might offend it.

The venue for Mr. Powell's glowing account of U.S. relations with
China was an all-star "Conference on China-U.S. Relations" hosted
by former President George H.W. Bush, former Chinese Vice Premier
Qian Qichen, and Henry Kissinger. The China that Mr. Powell
described in his speech was one the State Department would like to
see, not the real one. For example, Mr. Powell effused that "we are
cooperating to send a concerted message to the leadership in
Pyongyang that Pyongyang must comply with its international
commitments, it must terminate its nuclear-weapons programs,
promptly, verifiably and irreversibly."

The problem is that there has been no such "concerted message." The
most Beijing will say is that China "favors a denuclearized Korean
Peninsula" -- not a denuclearized North Korea -- while steadfastly
refusing to acknowledge Pyongyang even has nuclear weapons.
Moreover, the Chinese always hasten to add that denuclearization is
not their top priority, rather it's resolving the nuclear issue
peacefully and ensuring that Pyongyang's "legitimate security
concerns" are met.

From China's perspective, the disaster-laden six-nation talks on
the nuclear issue in Beijing in August -- between the two Koreas,
the U.S., China, Japan and Russia -- were not an effort to move
Pyongyang in Washington's direction, but rather to push Washington
to meet Pyongyang's demands. That means guaranteeing the survival
of the North Korean regime, keeping Japan muzzled about its kidnap
victims, demanding diplomatic recognition from Washington and
Tokyo, and above all, restraining any American moves to take North
Korea's nuclear brinkmanship to the United Nations, and ultimately
impose economic sanctions.

In fact, Beijing sees Washington rather than Pyongyang as the "main
obstacle to peace." Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who
hosted the six-nation talks, went to Manila immediately afterwards
and, on Sept. 1, blamed America for the lack of progress. Asked
about the Chinese criticism, Mr. Powell simply denied this, saying,
"I am quite sure the vice foreign minister was not resting the
problem on the United States." In other words, a classic case of
Stockholm Syndrome at the State Department -- in which the victim
hears only what he wants to hear.

Mr. Powell's speech also laid it on a bit thick in recounting
China's help in the War on Terror. After all, he must know as well
as anyone else that China has voted with the U.S. on U.N.
antiterror resolutions about as much as Syria, and no more. But
that's not what he said. Instead Mr. Powell praised how China had
supposedly "supported Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan as
we eliminated al Qaeda presence and the Taliban." That's despite
the fact that evidence of such Chinese support is thin on the
ground. I recall Beijing being adamantly opposed to the American
campaign in Afghanistan, and can't find any written record to
suggest otherwise.

The Chinese did "pledge" $150 million to Afghan reconstruction --
but no aid agency or the Afghan interim authority has seen the
money. Beijing publicized a several million dollar hospital
reconstruction project in Kabul last year, but the project was not
managed by the United Nations or the Afghan interim authority. The
fact is, no one outside China knows what funds, if any, China has
actually given Kabul.

On Iraq, Mr. Powell was again full of praise, "in the difficult
situation in Iraq, China has played a constructive role." That's a
bit much to describe a nation which has made no secret of its wish
to get the U.S. out of Iraq, talking repeatedly about the need for
"Iraq's sovereignty to be returned to the Iraqi people." In
practice, China has been no more helpful in the U.N. than France,
Germany or Russia. But Mr. Powell is now a diplomat, hence this
resort to diplo-babble.

Things got only marginally better when the subject turned to human
rights. While Mr. Powell didn't exactly breathe fire, at least he
reminded his audience that ordinary Chinese remain far from free.
He described "how China's leaders respond to the aspirations of
their own citizens" as a touchstone and added, "we, frankly, have
been disappointed by China's backsliding." But then things got
worse again, as Mr. Powell depicted China's suppression of basic
civil liberties as nothing more than a difference between friends,
"It is a reflection of the strength of our relationship that we can
speak of these issues candidly and openly, and sometimes in a
critical way. That is how real friends deal with each other. That
is how real partners get along." That's probably the first time
anyone in the Bush administration has called China a "partner," and
certainly the first time they've done so in the context of human
rights.

Only when Mr. Powell turned to Taiwan, did he start to make more
sense. In probably the most important sentences of the speech, Mr.
Powell was gratifyingly terse but firm, "we have to take note of
the military buildup opposite Taiwan on the mainland because that
sends a very different kind of signal. Whether China chooses peace
or coercion to resolve its differences with Taiwan will tell us a
great deal about the kind of role China seeks with its neighbors
and seeks with us."

The annual Pentagon reports on the "Military Power of the PRC" show
that China's military buildup speeds ahead, with Taiwan the primary
target. At some point, it'll be necessary to face up to the fact
that China's actions are sending the "different signal" that Mr.
Powell warned about, and one which must guide U.S. interpretations
of Beijing's intentions.

Which brings the issue back to America's vital interest in a
"democratic" China. The Bush administration's China policy is in
dire need of reassessment and that reassessment should begin by
going back to the words of Truman's 1945 dictum. A "strong and
unified" China, still less, a prosperous and powerful one, that is
not democratic will be driven by the expansionist and aggressive
tendencies that animate all dictatorships seeking legitimacy in the
absence of popular sovereignty -- Argentina, Yugoslavia, Iraq,
North Korea and the former Soviet Union all spring to mind.

That makes Mr. Powell's symbolic handshake with Chen Shui-bian, the
president of democratic Taiwan, in Panama City last week all the
more profound, even if he probably meant it as no more than good
manners. More than anything else, a "democratic" China is in
America's and the world's most vital interest. So too is Taiwan's
everyday demonstration that democracy and Chinese culture are not
only compatible, but can point the way to a China that would have
far more claim to be America's permanent friend.

John Tkacik is a
research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and served in the
foreign service in Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and
Taipei.